Apollo Astronaut Cernan Charges, Obama Doesn't Understand What America Is All About

August 23, 2012 • 7:35AM

"I don't think [Obama] understands what America [is] and what the traditions have been, and what being the leader of the free world has meant to the people of this country.... We have unique and special things that other countries don't have because of what we have been for the last 230-some-odd years," Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan stated, during a very animated interview with Fox News's Neil Cavuto. Cernan and fellow Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell have written open letters and testified before Congress over the past three years, warning about what Obama's take-down of the space program will do to the nation, and its future.

"I'm disheartened. I'm disappointed," Cernan said, at the decisions that have been made by Obama. Cernan has continually attacked the "slide toward mediocrity" that is today's space policy. "Curiosity was a tremendous accomplishment," he said, "but that program was started many, many years ago, and that program was funded many, many years ago." Now the Administration is proposing to take billions away from JPL, in the next five years.

"Give me a mission. Give me a goal," Cernan said. Interviewed by Caputo in Florida at the National Flight Academy, Cernan referred to some of the museum exhibits, saying that the major legacy of the Apollo program may be the inspiration it brought to young people.

Cernan confirmed that he has been given the opportunity to attend the Republican Party convention in Tampa. If he goes, he said, if he "has any credibility," he is "willing to lay it on the line."